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Stonewall Vet Fred Sargeant Attempts to Erase Black & Trans Activists from History
Fred Sargeant, a 71 years old gay activist who has actively campaigned against the inclusion of transgender individuals in activist efforts has claimed that transgender people “Did nothing.”
Over the 50 years since Stonewall, a lot of folklore has developed around the fateful night in 1969 that saw a dirty dive bar, the Stonewall Inn, become the landmark of a tipping point in history that would propel the fight for LGBTQ Americans.
Was there a brick? Wasn’t there a brick? Was it a stone? A shot glass? Did street queens form a kick line and dance in front of Police? Who catalyzed the violence? Was it Marsha P. Johnson, the beloved black trans person? Was it Sylvia Rivera, the Latinx transgender woman who would later form S.T.A.R (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.) Was it the gender non-conforming lesbian, Storme Delarverie, a Biracial singer whose cry for help catalyzed the conflict that would ensue?
The problem remains that much of the truth is lost to the tides of time, as many participants likely died in the AIDS epidemic that ravaged the LGBTQ community in the following decades. Others who have been interviewed have different perspectives or political alignments that influence their opinions of what exactly occurred in the chaos and in what chronology.
Those who were there, as well as historians who have combed over faded images, old news articles and broken film and audio reels attempting to piece together an accurate depictions of the events rather than allow some fantastical recreation to satisfy, perhaps, the prejudices of others.
In the case of Fred Sargeant, the man who has been anointed by the media as the go-to expert on the events surrounding the Stonewall Riots is one of those whose bias and inherent bigotry has distorted the truths in an effort to whitewash it to serve a conservative narrative.
